


that would be enough (you could be enough)

by Ravenesta



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: M/M, Modern AU, Some Swearing, alexander hamilton: dysfunctional human being, and peggy!, coffee shop AU, ill add shit as i go ok, lets be real tho we all needed the coffee shop au, that will probably become less and less about the coffee shop as we go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-02 00:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5227505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravenesta/pseuds/Ravenesta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Cold in my professions, warm in my friendships, I wish, my Dear Laurens, it might be in my power, by action rather than words to convince you that I love you."</p><p>They met in November.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. like you're running out of time

It was never truly quiet in New York City. Even now, rain pattered down outside, a constant track of white noise only interrupted by the occasional car speeding by, sending a spray of rainwater onto the sidewalk. The machines behind the counter hummed and sputtered, as they tended to. A young couple shared murmured words over a forgotten muffin, punctuated by the periodic turn of a page from the corner where the student was curled up in an armchair, lost in a novel, coffee cooling beside her.

John Laurens closed his eyes, and breathed.

The little coffee shop had become something of a haven for him, since he'd started working the evening shift. He caught the tail end of the lunch rush, sure, but beyond that, he mainly dealt with college students who'd procrastinated papers or revision, and then cleaned, and closed up at 10:30. After a morning of draining lectures, he'd learned to appreciate little moments like this, these pockets of muffled silence in the evening, cast in the soft yellow light of the shop.

The door swung open loudly, effectively popping the bubble, and John had to bite his cheek to stop himself from scowling at the man who stumbled into the shop.  
Well, actually looking at him, perhaps 'man' was a bit of a stretch; the dude was nineteen _maybe_. He looked like a drowned rat as well, dark hair plastered to his head in wild directions by the rain, slim figure absolutely drowning in a massive blue hoodie. With the visible shadows under his dark eyes, the bulging messenger bag slung over his shoulder, and the bundle of paperwork clutched protectively to his chest, he looked the very picture of an exhausted college student.

Something seemed _off_ about him, though. Something about the eyes, like he was looking at John, but not really seeing him, flitting about, focused on something that wasn't there, or something that was invisible to John, at least. Still, John put on his best friendly customer smile, and, trying to preserve some of the shop's previous peace, asked quietly, "Hey, what can I get for you?"

Almost instantly, the man responded, "Espresso." Then, distractedly, almost as an afterthought, "Please. Do you have an outlet?"  
John nodded. "Over there," he said, pointing behind the man to the armchair by the door. "That's four bucks." The man rummaged in his jean pockets for a moment, before putting four crumpled ones on the counter, barely offering John an absent smile before he was settling himself in the armchair, pulling out a battered-looking laptop and plugging it into the wall.

Usually, John would've asked for his name, but an hour before closing, there wasn't likely to be a sudden rush of customers, and John didn't trust himself not to make a friendly introduction awkward. He set about making the man's coffee, the motions practiced, mindless, and relaxing. The man was already typing when John set the mug down next to him, so intensely focused on the harsh light of the screen, John didn't receive so much as a nod of acknowledgment. The clattering of the keys was a little irritating at first, but as he walked around, wiping the empty tables and the counter, he found that it eventually faded into the background, an addition to the little soundtrack of the shop. It was fascinating, how fast the guy was typing. His fingers never stopped for an instant. John saw his left hand typing out some new thought even as his right insistently tapped on the backspace key.

For ten minutes, he didn't touch his coffee. He only stopped typing when the couple finally finished off their muffin and left, waving goodbye to John politely. The man started at the sound of the door to his right, then blinked, looking around as if he wasn't quite sure where he was, or how he'd ended up there. This absent state of confusion lasted for all of ten seconds before the guy grabbed the coffee from the table next to him, downed it in one go, and went straight back to typing. John winced in sympathy; it must've been cold by now, or at least unpleasantly lukewarm. The dark circles under his eyes, the way he kept forcefully blinking, as if shaking himself awake, though… Looked like the poor guy needed it.

He set about making two more drinks. The hot chocolate was set down next to the student, to replace her coffee, and she rewarded him with a grateful grin before diving back into her book, mug curled to her chest. He set the espresso on the table beside the man, in place of the empty mug. The guy, once more, didn't acknowledge him, but did grab the mug almost as soon as it was set down, sipping it while continuing to type with one hand. The laptop was balanced precariously on his knees, shaking with each forceful jab at the keys.

At ten o'clock, the student left, sliding a twenty across the counter to pay for the drinks he'd been giving her. John shook his head and slid it back, waving her out of the door with a grin. He probably shouldn't be so easygoing with the free refills, considering how broke he was himself, but hey, it was November, John was allowed to be nice sometimes.

The man didn't so much as blink when the door opened this time, didn't seem to notice that he was the only customer still in the shop. Instead, John saw him enter a state of hyperfocus, a chilling intensity in his dark eyes, fingers moving at an inhuman speed. His lips moved as he wrote, and when John walked by to sweep near him, he heard him muttering, too quietly for John to hear exactly what he was saying, but the forceful emotion behind the words crystal clear. John replaced his drink again at 10:10.  
  
By 10:30, the coffee shop was spotless, and John was just about ready to lock up. The man was still typing.  
John really should tell the guy that the shop was closed now, that he had to go, but somewhere around the third replacement two minutes ago, the man's eyes had lit up, a soft smile tugging at his lips that made something in John's chest jump, and he'd started typing with renewed energy, his entire body curling in around the laptop, almost shaking with the energy of his words.  
John pulled his anatomy textbook out of his bag, settled himself at the counter, and began to read, with the frantic tapping of keys filling the shop, lulling him to sleep.

At 11:45, the sound of a laptop slamming shut startled him awake. The man chuckled quietly, grinning down at his laptop. "Done," he whispered. "Done!" He looked up, making eye contact with John. The man's excitement was tangible, infectious, and John found himself returning the smile, even as he blinked the remains of his nap out of his eyes.

The man froze as soon as John smiled at him, mouth half open, still grinning, eyes actually shining in the warm light, and John had the semi-coherent notion that he was probably the most beautiful person he'd ever seen.  
"Oh my god," the man said, eyebrows furrowing. "What time is it?"  
John glanced at his watch. "11:46," he replied.  
Pure, unrestrained panic flew across the man's features. "Uh, what… What time do you close?" There was a hopeful, bordering on desperate note in the question, that made John laugh as he answered.  
"Uh, 10:30, dude."

The man scrambled to pack up his things, frantically shoving the laptop into the overpacked messenger bag, and nearly knocking the empty mug off of the table in the process. All the while, he apologized profusely, repeating, "Sorry, god, sorry, you shoulda kicked me out, didn't even realize what time it was, I swear-"

John slid off of the bar stool slowly, smiling in a way he hoped was reassuring. "No trouble, man, really. It was, uh, nice. The company, I mean. It gets quiet."

The man gave him an odd look, expression unreadable. John had to stop himself from flinching away from the intensity of his dark eyes. Eventually, he stuck out a hand. "Alex Hamilton," he said with an easy smile.  
John returned it, taking his hand. _Soft_ , the drowsy part of his brain noted, entirely without his permission. "John Laurens," he replied.

John did one last round of the shop, turning off the lights as he went, and grabbing his bag. He was surprised to see Alex waiting for him at the door, holding it open with that same little smile that made John's breath catch in the back of his throat. It probably should've been awkward, the silence, but instead it felt oddly intimate, the way Alex was looking at him almost… fondly?  
As they stepped out into the street together, John locking the door behind them, John realized that it had stopped raining. He hadn't even noticed; the sound had been replaced at some point by Alex's typing.  
The street was deserted, and pitch black, Alex and John standing under the only streetlight until the end of the block. John turned to Alex, suddenly concerned. "Do you-" the question got caught somewhere between his brain and his mouth, abruptly afraid of coming off as overbearing, or creepy, or something. Alex was looking at him expectantly, though, so John feigned some semblance of calm, and asked, "Do you have a ride home? It's, uh, dangerous to walk around this time of night, and I have a car-"

Alex laughed, this little huff like he had an inside joke with himself. "Thanks, Laurens, but my friend is just down the street," he pointed to an apartment building across the street, beside a little bookstore, "and I'm sure she won't mind me staying the night."

With that, Alex adjusted the messenger bag on his shoulder and set off at a brisk pace. Alex, John thought, with a small smile, walked like he typed: shoulders set, looking straight ahead, without any hesitation, dead set on his goal, and only the slightest bounce to his step betraying any of his boundless enthusiasm.

John stood by his car, hesitating before he got in. Was it creepy if he made sure Alex got inside safe? Almost as if he could read minds, Alex looked over his shoulder, throwing John one last wave and a grin, before disappearing into the shadows on the other side of the street.  
  
The cold was piercing, creeping, making him shudder as if he weren't wearing a coat at all. The air was sharp, yet still heavy with rain, and he could see his breath in front of him, coming in little white puffs of steam.

John Laurens closed his eyes, and breathed.


	2. Drowning in 'em

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next day was, if possible, stranger than the first.

John woke up with a headache, pulse pounding agonizingly like a war drum in his ears.

It was honestly shocking that he'd even heard his alarm going off over the throbbing of his head. He reached over, hitting at his bedside table blindly until he found the source of the noise. The light from his phone only exacerbated the pain, and he groaned, both at the intrusion of the harsh light into his cocoon of warmth and darkness, and at the time. _5:20_. It should be noted that while John Laurens certainly _could_  stay up late, even pull all-nighters when absolutely necessary, it was a terrible idea. Hey, he was a growing boy, he needed his sleep. In hindsight, taking all of his classes before 11 AM was also a terrible idea. So was staying at the coffee shop so late that he didn't get to sleep until one in the morning just so that some kid could finish whatever paper he was working on, really.

John had some regrets.

He spent exactly 9 minutes convincing himself to leave bed, reaching for his phone just in time to switch off his 'time to literally get up now' alarm. It was a slow process, poking one limb at a time out of the blanket cave he tended to make in the winter, and muttering "there's a hot shower out there," to himself until he finally forced himself fully out of bed, hissing when his bare feet hit the freezing wood floor.  
He shivered all the way from his bed to the attached bathroom, hand on the wall to guide him, since he wasn't quite willing to tackle his 'if you flip it at just the right speed and then jiggle it a bit it'll maybe work' lamp this morning.

He didn't usually take very long showers—six minutes at _most_ on days when he had class—but this morning, the hot water felt like a fucking gift, and he stood, eyes closed, under the spray for longer than was strictly necessary, carefully weighing the pros and cons of skipping his first lecture of the day. It was Thursday, he was pretty sure, so that was his Intro to Anatomy. Assuming his professor followed the syllabus (which he did, almost religiously, and the minute there was a single deviation from his scripted lesson, he let the room descend into chaos,) he would just be reviewing the last assigned chapter, which John had managed to finish last night, thanks to one Alexander Hamilton.  
So yeah, he could afford to miss one class of Professor Church reading passages from the textbook he wrote (and boy, did John have a lot to say about that,) in a monotone voice, and then summarizing it so that a dog could've understood it.  
By that point, he'd probably been in the shower long enough that he'd have had to speed to make it anyways. Ah, well.

John did manage to convince himself to leave the shower eventually, more for the sake of his water bill than anything. The transition was even more stark and unpleasant than getting out of bed, the sudden cold causing all of the air to leave his lungs in a quiet, drawn out " _fuck_ " from between his teeth.

As much as he'd love to be able to put the heating on, every time he so much as thought about it, he could practically hear his wallet sobbing. So, he settled for dressing in as many layers as he could realistically get away with without looking like a freckled, lumpy marshmallow: long sleeved shirt, t-shirt, thin hoodie, thicker hoodie, and his winter coat for when he had to leave the house. He considered just wearing sweatpants, but he was working today, so eventually he sighed, tugging on leggings borrowed from his sister, before squirming into the first pair of jeans he could find.

The kitchen was colder than the rest of the house, enough that John could see his breath in the dull grey light trying halfheartedly to filter through the clouds. He passed his newfound extra time by half-heartedly chewing on a slightly stale protein bar. It was too early in the morning to be truly hungry, but if he didn't eat before he could get to the campus café, he'd probably be sick before lunch. He let himself zone out on the sofa beside his window, mindlessly doodling on the fogged up glass, a snowman here, a turtle there, until he realized that it was time to actually _go_.

The rest of the morning passed somewhat uneventfully, enough of a blur that John didn't remember much of it. Although, that may have something to do with the fact that, even despite the sugar-overloaded coffee and pastry he'd picked up, he still drifted off in most of his classes. He outright slept through American Lit, and everywhere else, he found his mind wandering, hands drawing instead of taking notes, entirely of their own accord.  
At one point, he looked down and nearly jumped in his seat when he saw a pair of roughly sketched, dark eyes staring back at him. Familiar, but missing something—a certain light behind them. It was odd, mainly because by lunch, John had half convinced himself that Alex Hamilton had been something he'd dreamed up.

He spent longer than he'd care to admit trying to figure out what he'd missed, filling two pages of his notebook with Alex's eyes before snapping himself out of it. He felt off-kilter, still not entirely convinced that the entire encounter with Alex hadn't been some kind of hallucination, maybe something about the coffee beans. If he remembered, they'd just switched to a more expensive brand.  
It was a funny idea to entertain; yeah, he'd just been high off of the fucking coffee fumes. Even if he hadn't, it wasn't uncommon for students to duck into the shop for one night, never to appear again. Alex had probably just been looking for some shelter from the rain.

Alex was in the coffee shop when John walked in at 2 PM. Because _of course_  he was. He was sitting at the counter, instead of the armchair, rendering the stools to his immediate left and right unusable, due to the laptop, notebooks, binder, folders, and various loose sheets of paper strewn about in a chaotic, semi-organized pile. He looked somewhat less disheveled than he had last night, although, only somewhat. His dark hair was pulled up into a messy bun, loose strands falling around his ears and eyes, and there was a pair of wire rimmed glasses perched precariously on the end of his nose. He was writing furiously in a notebook, no less than three empty mugs balanced on the papers around him.

As soon as Peggy spotted him, she was _gone_ , out from behind the counter as fast as she was physically able. He got a peck on the cheek, and then she was running out of the door in a blur of neon pink, massive backpack bouncing behind her and almost catching on the handle.

Peggy Schuyler was the sweetest person he'd ever met, but she'd never quite forgiven him for offering to trade shifts without warning her about the chaos that was the lunch rush, students and office workers flooding in and out, a never ending revolving door of utter hell and crying over spilled coffee.

There was a small line of bored-looking students and middle aged guys in cheap suits, obviously irritated at the delay caused by the shift change, so John spent about ten minutes taking their orders and trying to clear away the debris on some tables, making some space as quickly as possible.  
Finally, there was a lull in the flow of customers, and John sagged against the counter with a sigh. Alex, to his right, had remained utterly unaffected, and was still writing with inhuman speed. He must've filled up half of that notebook, by this point.

John spent a moment carefully considering his options, then decided _fuck it_ , and as casually has he could manage, said, "Hey, Alex. Need anything?"

Alex jumped, almost falling off of the barstool, and taking a few papers with him. Alex beamed up at him, as he tried to pull himself upright. "John!" And really, that smile should be illegal. "I got here like, an hour ago, but you weren't—oh, but Peggy was! And I love her, and she makes great espressos, but yours were, I never told you, but, like, fucking incredible, and I kinda wanted to see you again, and this place is really nice, so I guess I decided to wait?"

John laughed, caught somewhere between bemused and amazed at the disorganized jumble of an explanation. "An espresso, then?"

"Yes, please, that would be _incredible._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> basically filler so that i can get really into the lams thing  
> written mostly at around 3 am so please excuse this  
> as always, if you spot any errors, pls let me know!!  
> (i can also be found on tumblr @vicesandvipers

**Author's Note:**

> i don't have a beta, so pointing out any glaring errors would be appreciated  
> (also i have literally this entire fic planned out but unfortunately school is a thing so updates will be spontaneous and of varying length)  
> (fair warning: this is gonna become progressively less and less about the coffee shop)


End file.
